China's Damage to the Environment

            The speed and scale of China's rise to power has no known parallel in history. One of the consequences of the massive industrial growth in China is the significant impact it has had on the environment. China is on track to becoming an ecological wasteland.

            China has now surpassed the United States as the world's leading producer of greenhouse gas, and the pollution resulting from such massive manufacturing is taking its toll on the health of Chinese citizens. Citizens in many Chinese cities never see the sun because they literally live under a toxic brownish-gray cloud.

             Half of China's rivers cannot be used for drinking water and 10% of them cannot be used for any purpose. Studies show that 64 percent of China's citizens are using unsafe drinking water, and children regularly die of lung problems and lead poisoning. Southern provinces suffer from water shortages, which had never occurred before. The price of water in major cities has become a significant problem for the common people.

             Large portions of the ocean can no longer support life due to toxic red tides. A massive quantity of industrial and residential sewage flows into the sea and have now seriously damaged the one-time marine "paradise," causing irreversible damage to many coastal areas.

             Forests on both sides of the Yangtze river and its Three Gorges reservoir have died off or been logged, leading to bare mountains and hills which cause dangerous landslides. The trash and debris in the river is so massive, people are reported to be able to literally walk across it in places. It has actually threatened to jam up the dam.

            Recently, China had a major flood disaster along this river which killed 3,000 people and left millions homeless. Recently, China admitted it was not actually a natural disaster because the river had handled such rainfall the past with no problems. But the recent deforestation and soil erosion was causing the rainwater to not be absorbed into the ground. Thus, the runoff overflowed the river banks with water and killed thousands of people unexpectedly.

            In 2010, 2.3 million gallons of acid waste escaped the Fujian copper plant and emptied into the Ting River, killing 28 people and poisoning enough fish to feed 72,000 people for a year.

            But the environmental damage is not limited to China alone. China produces 28 percent of the global total of sulfur emissions. Acid rain from the Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emitted from coal-fired power plants are falling on the eastward countries of Korea and Japan. NASA studies discovered that about 10 billion pounds of airborne pollutants such soot, ozone, mercury and carbon dioxide reach the North American borders every year. This accounts for 10 to 15 percent of the pollution in our air.

            All this environmental damage is not going unnoticed among Chinese citizens. In 2007, there were 600,000 appeals and complaints due to environmental pollution, with 80,000 of those complaints resulting in physical confrontations. Social conflicts from the pollution rose even more rapidly in 2009 according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

            Of course, this is all happening on the other side of the world and the Chinese government and people are responsible for taking good care of that part of the planet. America's environmental protection standards, while not perfect, are far higher than that of China. If we want to be a part of the solution, we should choose products that are Made in America. The fact of the matter is--America's insatiable desire for Chinese products is fueling much of the entire problem.